This paper will introduce the four central chapters of my recent book, Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain, and think about who was using onomantic devices (name-number divination) in the later Middle Ages based on manuscript context and evidence of ownership. It will talk about physicians, the nobility, scholars and monks – four nebulous and overlapping categories of user groups – and offer some explanations as to why these groups might take such an interest in predicting the future via this method.

Jo Edge specialises in late medieval and early modern European social and cultural history, with an emphasis on medicine and the ‘occult’ sciences: divination, magic and astrology; as well as the experience of illness and death. after completing her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of London, she was Assistant Editor on the Casebooks Project at the University of Cambridge (2014–18). She has also held library and lectureship positions at the University of Manchester, and from 2021–24 was Research Fellow on Alice Thornton’s Books. Her first book, Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain: Questioning Life, Predicting Death was published by York Medieval Press in 2024, and she has articles and chapters forthcoming on Alice Thornton’s experiences of illness, magic and witchcraft studies, and the diagrammatic culture of late medieval divination. She is also preparing a book for a public audience on bewitchment in the casebooks of the early seventeenth century astrologer-physician Richard Napier. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire.

All welcome